With Skate America and Skate Canada in the books, this season’s ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating now heads to Asia for Cup of China and NHK Trophy. No skater has qualified for the Grand Prix Final yet, but there sure are plenty of contenders for the six spots that are available for each discipline.

With five medals, two of which are gold, the Canada currently leads the medal count, though both the U.S. and Japan have three medals each. The U.S. and Russia both have with two golds.

Ksenia Makarova RUS - triple toe (fall, no combo), steps into triple loop (bailed out at 2 1/2, downgrade), double axel - she just looks to be tentative with the jumps when it comes to the program itself because she looked fine in warmups, too bad because it's a really elegant program - TES 20.44, PCS 26.46, FALL -1.00, SP TOTAL 45.90

With Cup of China completed this weekend, the Grand Prix series has reached the halfway mark, and the pieces of the Grand Prix Final puzzle are starting to fall into place. With her win in Shanghai, Italy’s Carolina Kostner was the first skater to qualify for the Grand Prix Final in December. China’s Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang also booked a spot in the Final with their second silver medal in the series.

The U.S. has moved to the front of the medal count with six, three of which are gold. Canada also has six medals. Russia continues to lead in the gold medal count, with two more wins this weekend at Cup of China to increase to four golds and five overall.